Pinkie Swear, too

Updating/appending/commenting on this earlier post on the recent Bin Laden Tape.

In that post, I show some [lots of] skepticism as to the authenticity of the tape. Frankly, I still am skeptical. The fact that the CIA and other US officials have verified that they believe the voice on the tape belongs to OBL himself only does so much to alleviate my concerns... if it does anything at all.

But I thought that this piece is interesting:

WASHINGTON -- The White House said a new audiotape shows Osama bin Laden is "on the run," but counterterrorism experts said it instead pointed up an embarrassing fact for President George W. Bush: It appears bin Laden is alive and well four years after Sept. 11.

More than that, some counterterror analysts pointed to parallels in a 2004 bin Laden tape where he offered a similar "truce" to European leaders, only to have the London subway bombings take place about a year later.

U.S. officials said yesterday that they had picked up no increased "chatter" signaling an imminent attack inside the United States, despite bin Laden's threat that a strike is in the works.

The Department of Homeland Security said it has no plans to raise the national terror alert level of yellow, the middle step of five.

The CIA confirmed the voice is bin Laden's and believes the audiotape was made recently, a senior administration official said. The al-Qaida leader refers to Bush's alleged desire to bomb Al-Jazeera television, first reported on Nov. 22.

In the tape, bin Laden said "it's only a matter of time" before another attack on the United States, but offered a "long-term truce" with unspecified terms, something the White House flatly rejected.

"We do not negotiate with terrorists. We put them out of business," said Bush spokesman Scott McClellan.

Firstly, I do not recall any specific tape or any specific coverage of Bin Laden offering a "truce" to the UK. I have vague recollections that a tape released sometime way back when stated something to the effect of: If the UK decides not to support the US any more, than Al Qaeda won't bomb them. Of course, the UK didn't stop, and they were in fact attacked in the summer of last year.

To me, that's hardly a truce offering. I still doubt that Al Qaeda would simply have just not carried out the attack without massive mobilization from other potential sponsor nations. In other words, it seems to me that the scenario where Al Qaeda just says "Hey, you know what? We've decided to be nice now, on our terms," it's just too good to be true. They do not stand to benefit from that- at least to my knowledge.

However, it is very possible that I'm wrong here. So I'm willing to state that- hey. I may be wrong. I'm also willing to remain skeptical.

The article also shows that this demonstrates a supposed weakness for The Administration- that American's feel that with UBL still floating around, that this President hasn't done by us too good no more.

I think that's probably true. But what a shame, really. In October of 2004, during the very last stretch of the presidential elections, a Bin Laden tape mysteriously arose [and cryptically said to the American public that it didn't matter which president we selected- both were terrible choices and would lead to continued jihad]. Kerry blames this tape for a huge last minute dip in his votes- suddenly, the "security-minded" were again triggered to remember all those times Bush and The Administration blathered about 9/11 for the previous 3 years. Bush was braced by this, and ultimately won.

Unfortunately, there wasn't enough of this thinking back then. Tons of us were screaming: "If you hadn't frickin' gone to war, and hadn't have blown the whole G.W.o.T. when you abandoned Afghanistan, we wouldn't have this guy!"

But it was to Bush's advantage then to have the spector of Bin Laden floating around the room. And The Adminstration knew it. Everybody knew it. And if it takes the public an extra year to realize that the constant haunting of Osama Bin Laden is truly not a good thing for us [it always was, see, a good thing for Bush], then so be it. But it's pretty ridiculous. And we've gone through a hell of a year, 2005, to get to that point.

Lastly- a quick comment on Scotty Mac's rebuttal to Bin Laden:

"We do not negotiate with terrorists. We put them out of business," said Bush spokesman Scott McClellan.

As though we're the Wal-Mart to their small-town business. And apparently, by virtue of the fact that, well, they're still up and running, and that our efforts only further their anger, I'd say we need to change our business model.

And it is a horrific slide in language from 4 years ago. Remember our bold president? The "Dead or Alive" President? That manly Texan that half the country wanted to drink beers with because they thought he was capable of living up to that nonsense?

Whoops.

Not "Dead or Alive," any more. We've moved from the angry Wild West Cowboy to the socially awkward Cubical Worker.